Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Innovative"

Braid is an indie developed 2d platformer based on a guy trying to save a princess, sound familiar? That cliché is literally decimated with an atomic bomb in the game. Braid is a timeless game that stretches the concept of 2D graphics and the platforming/puzzle genre to a new level. It intertwines an engrossing story with superb puzzle mechanics to make a game that will leave you in awe (much like myself).

Braid doesn't take long to grab you by the collar and smear your face in an addictive story. The premise seems simple enough, save the princess save the world (hello reference) but like the suspicious van parked opposite to the elementary school, you know that this story has a darker side to it. Without stealing from your potential enjoyment Braid has a great story and it is delivered in a superb way that will have keep you utterly keen throughout. The story is delivered mainly through the acquisition of puzzle pieces, which you piece together to give you an insight into the past. However, these pictures don't exactly have a caption under them, which whilst frustrating in the sense that you worked your butt off for the pieces but have no clue what the picture is saying. Have no fear though, as the game went on I pieced together my own interpretation of the pictures and for the dev team be able to provoke the audience to think so deeply is an outstanding achievement because you are not being told a story, you are discovering one. To top this off the developers did one more thing that was so very bittersweet, they inserted 8 stars into the game that are very hard to find and i mean HARD. I played the game for hours upon hours and collected every puzzle piece but never actually found one star (until i replayed it). Now you may think that this is some sort of cheap trick by the designers to keep you playing but I very much disagree, whilst not everyone will go back I feel as if that these stars add to the mystery behind the story, that is, did you really see and understand everything?

In Braid the puzzles are solved through very creative use of seemingly simple time manipulation mechanics to solve the most advanced puzzles you'll see in a 2D game let alone platformers. The game offers puzzles that require some very nifty use of the mechanics provided and are very rewarding to solve (without cheating). Braid seems to be able to warp any sort of situation into something so amazingly creative that you press pause and say "wow that was F*****G awesome". The idea of 2D gaming would seem primitive to most, inferior to many but you learn a very good lesson from this game, a genre can be as exciting as the developers want it to be. In addition to the ground breaking gameplay, you'll find that the time manipulation has a greater significance in terms of the story and every mechanic has a sort of connotation that is tied to the protagonists emotions, for example, the use of the time shadow mechanic (basically you do something, press rewind and the shadow will go do the thing you did and you can then go and do something else all the while) is a reflection of things that could of been done differently in hindsight. Well thats what it said to me - you can look at it and say something very different, kudos dev team.

The simplicity in both the audio and the visual side of the game complemented the immersion. The world feels like it was painted through emotion, that is, you can see dark, somber and joyous through the artwork. Whilst we all know how far graphics can go and how amazing things can look but what do you say when a simple backdrop feels more immersive then millions spent by an AAA company? In itself the graphics are not exceptional but the game does something very right that a lot of game devs do not, you design the graphics to complement the gameplay and not design the graphics to make up for gameplay. The audio does well to reflect the general mood of the situation, soothing when it needs to be and raging when a wall of fire is chasing you. To be honest though, you could play this game on mute and you would still have a fantastic time.

To conclude, Braid is a very under the radar game and costs a fraction of what you would pay for a normal game. I actually had to refer to the PSN network to remind myself how much the game cost because long after finishing this game I didn't remember the price i paid and if you asked me now I would value the game much higher as it has earned itself cult status. Braid is a fantastic game, whilst not for the simple gamer that likes the idea of point and shoot it, it will please the more mature of gamers who are disappointed by developers using the same old mechanics in the same old way. With a lively story, arty design and impressive mechanics, this game is a must own for any respectable gamer.